Redirecting Ctrl+A with JavaScript

Apr 20, 2014

I needed to catch Ctrl+A and redirect it to copy the content of a specific element. This does exactly that:

document.addEventListener('keydown', function (event) {
  if(event.ctrlKey && event.keyCode == 65) {
    var range = document.createRange();
    range.selectNode(document.getElementsByTagName('main')[0]);
    window.getSelection().addRange(range);
    event.preventDefault();
  }
});

What it does:

• Attach a keydown handler to document to get all key presses
• Make sure Ctrl+A have been pressed (A is keyCode 65)
• Add a selection to an element (<main> in this case)
• Call preventDefault to make sure the event is ignored by the browser

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